SPANISH FORT, Ala.—Causeway motorists beware. The turtles are on the move.

Baldwin County’s indigenous red-bellied turtles are hatching and scrambling for area waterways, but precautions enacted five months ago to ensure the official state reptile’s safe passage across the Causeway have already reduced mortalities by 74 percent.

Hank Burch, manager of Five Rivers Delta Resource Center in Spanish Fort, said the freshwater red-bellied turtles follow the same life cycle as sea turtles, but they don’t follow the light of the moon to the water like their seawater counterparts.

“(Red-bellied turtles) just wander aimlessly until they fall into the water, and that creates trouble zones—especially for motorists—between the nests and the water,” Burch said.

Alabama’s red-bellied turtle is only found in four coastal counties: Baldwin and Mobile in Alabama and Harrison and Jackson in Mississippi.

The Alabama Department of Transportation announced in October the completion of a 3.4-mile, low-barrier fence to assist the endangered reptiles along their clumsy paths. The department is also displaying banners during hatching and nesting seasons, pleading with motorists to give the endangered species a “brake.”

Burch said the species’ females typically nest from April to early August and only leave their watery habitats to lay their eggs on dry land. This activity peaks in July, creating traffic obstacles. Likewise, newborn hatchlings begin their uncoordinated crawls toward water either between October and November or March and April.

A new study conducted by the University of South Alabama’s David Nelson said the results of the transportation department’s precautions are already having a positive impact.

“Since the construction of the (chain-link) fencing, turtle mortalities have declined significantly from a total of 109 in 2007, to 28 in 2008,” Nelson, an associate professor in USA’s department of biological sciences, stated.

ALDOT Transpor-tation Director Joe McInnes said the fences are effective, but the public should remain aware of nesting and hatching cycles to minimize collisions.

He also suggested motorists slow down when approaching habitat areas—typically openings or sparsely vegetated areas near levees, roadsides, river banks or dredge spoil sites—and brake safely for turtles in the road if traffic conditions allow.